


Unicycles and Warm Baths

by BookishAngel (DisnerdingAvenger)



Series: An Angel and a Demon [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Fluff and Humor, M/M, megan's prompts strike again, silly celestials, unapologetic fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 00:24:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19120804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisnerdingAvenger/pseuds/BookishAngel
Summary: Crowley missed a lot of things by sleeping through the entirety of the nineteenth century, including the invention of the unicycle in 1866. He found the prospect of riding on a single wheel to be incredibly interesting - especially because Aziraphale didn't think he could do it.Or, Crowley tries to ride a unicycle and fails miserably.





	Unicycles and Warm Baths

**Author's Note:**

  * For [meganseverafter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meganseverafter/gifts).



> I can't even begin to explain how this concept came about. This is absolutely unapologetic fluff, folks. Strap in.

Crowley missed a lot of things by sleeping through the entirety of the nineteenth century. For example, he missed the invention of the steam locomotive in 1804 (which he thought was brilliant when he learned of it); he missed the publication and stage performances of the complete works of Oscar Wilde (which the angel told him about incessantly - which didn’t make him jealous, no sir, not jealous at _all_ ); and he missed the thrilling introduction of the unicycle in 1866.

He also missed the introduction of standard bicycles in 1817, but Crowley found the prospect of riding around on a _single_ wheel far more interesting –

\- largely because Aziraphale didn’t think he could do it.

“ _Really_ , Crowley, don’t be _ridiculous_ ,” Aziraphale had sighed as they walked along Piccadilly Circus, the London nightlife of 1903 bustling around them. Crowley had just woken up from his hundred-year nap a few days prior and was still catching up on everything that he’d missed. He was particularly fixated on unicycles. “Need I remind you that you have a track record of falling off _horses?_ A sentient creature with four legs? How do you expect to stay aloft on an inanimate object with _only a single wheel?_ ”

“Horses are _different,_ angel,” Crowley huffed as they walked side-by-side. “They notoriously dislike _snakes_. I highly doubt an inanimate object will hold a predisposed grudge against me.”

“You’re missing the point, my dear,” Aziraphale countered, taking Crowley’s elbow and forcing him to stop walking. “You’ve been asleep for _a hundred years._ You haven’t even learned to ride a proper bicycle yet; you can’t expect to be able to ride a _unicycle_ instantaneously. These things take practice.”

“For you, maybe,” Crowley countered before tossing Aziraphale a smirk – the sort of smirk that meant he was about to do or say something incredibly foolish that would make Aziraphale’s head ache for a week. “But you and I both know that _I_ am a naturally gifted individual.”

“I’m afraid that you and I may have drastically different definitions of ‘gifted’, my dear.”

“Have a little faith in me, angel,” Crowley quipped before starting forward down the street again, prompting Aziraphale to follow. He’d been tempted to say something about how, as an angel, it would be improper for him to have faith in a demon, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to say so aloud – largely because it wouldn’t have been the truth.

He _did_ have faith in Crowley – even if he chose to do and say incredibly stupid things.

* * *

After their initial conversation, Aziraphale assumed that Crowley forgot about the unicycle debacle altogether. They had instead spent most of their time travelling around Europe via train to get the demon accustomed to the new mode of transportation, along with frequenting museums and theatres to bridge the century-long culture gap. As it would turn out, Crowley was a fan of Robert Louis Stevenson’s stage production titled _Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde_. The play was still a bit too gruesome for Aziraphale’s tastes – but that didn’t mean that he valued his signed first edition copy of the novella any less.

It was 1906 before unicycles came up again. Both Aziraphale and Crowley had found themselves in America for a brief stint of time – Chicago, to be specific – and they decided to take the opportunity to see what all the fuss around Barnum & Bailey’s Circus was all about.

There were elephants and lions, fire-breathers and acrobats, and clowns – the latter of which were riding _unicycles._

The angel and the demon were sitting a few rows back from the front, taking in the show, when Crowley leaned over and stated in Aziraphale’s ear, “I still say I can ride one of those.”

“One of what, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, his attention transfixed on the acrobats flying around overhead. It really was quite impressive, for creatures without wings to accomplish such a feat. Crowley nudged his side and pointed to force his attention in the proper direction.

“A _unicycle_ , angel,” he clarified, prompting the angel to roll his eyes and groan.

“Oh, not this again. Crowley, _really-_ ”

“Oh, come off it, angel,” Crowley cut in, crossing his arms over his chest as he slouched slightly in his seat. “I can ride a bicycle now, so that argument is out, and I still stand by horses hating me.”

“You’d only go and get yourself _hurt,_ trying a foolish stunt like that,” Aziraphale continued to protest, in response to which Crowley just stared at him for a long moment before speaking again over the uproarious crowd.

“Need I remind you that ‘m a _demon_ , angel? It’d take a great deal more than _falling off a unicycle_ to hurt me.”

“So you admit that you’d fall off if you tried,” Aziraphale quipped, the ghost of a smirk pulling at his lips, and Crowley stammered for a moment with shock at the angel’s snarky remark.

_The bastard._

Setting his jaw, deciding that Aziraphale looked far too pleased with himself, Crowley got to his feet.

“If you won’t believe me, then I’ll just have to _prove_ that I can do it, won’t I?”

“What-?” Aziraphale began to ask just as Crowley snapped his fingers, and the angel made a noise of complaint when they were both miracled outside of the tent, where a gentle rain was falling.

“ _Honestly!_ ” he complained properly, miracling an umbrella up so his suit wouldn’t be soaked through should the rain begin to fall any harder. “I was _enjoying the show_ – and I paid for my ticket! Paid for it with _proper money_. You had no right to just pull us out like that, and-”

With a wave of his hand, Crowley miracled a unicycle into his grasp – one that, if the gasp from inside the tent was any indication, had just vanished from beneath a poor, unsuspecting clown’s rump.

“Now, _really,_ Crowley, I won’t stand for this,” Aziraphale stated, clutching his umbrella a tad tighter, and the demon placed the unicycle on the damp ground, gripping the seat to keep it upright as he spoke.

“You don’t need to stand for it, angel; by all means, take a seat.”

Aziraphale simply rolled his eyes and pursed his lips, his blue gaze reluctantly following Crowley as the demon climbed onto the unicycle. A demon on a unicycle; _surely_ that was a recipe for disaster? Then again, it may have been demonic influence which inspired the infernal invention to begin with. It had little to no practical applications whatsoever, after all, and it just… looked so _silly_. Angels, overall, preferred to be dignified whenever possible, so Upstairs couldn’t possibly have had a hand in things.

To his credit, Crowley typically preferred to be dignified, as well – often more than Aziraphale did himself – a fact which made this entire excursion all the more ridiculous.

An expression close to a grimace and just a hint of worry playing upon the angel’s features, Aziraphale piped up, “Crowley, you don’t need to prove anything to me. Why don’t we just go back inside and enjoy the rest of the show? I’m sure that poor clown would like his unicycle back… unharmed.”

“Well, clearly I _do_ have something to prove since you seem so convinced that riding this bloody thing is beyond my capabilities. Prepare to be proved wrong, angel. I’m about to blow you away.”

With that, Crowley placed his feet on the pedals of the unicycle and, for a moment, Aziraphale honestly wondered if he _would_ be proven wrong. _If_ the unicycle was a demonic invention, then it would have made sense that Crowley could pilot it, wouldn’t it? Of course, that was before Crowley actually attempted to do so.

The instant that he tried to pedal, the unicycle tipped backwards and sent him sprawling, with a flail of lanky limbs, directly into a mud puddle. He just lay there for a moment, with his thoroughly bruised ego, sopping suit, and muddy hair before lifting a finger into the air and hissing out, “Not a word, angel. Not a _blassssssssted_ word.”

When he’d seen Crowley go down, Aziraphale’s hand had gone to his mouth to stifle a gasp – and, soon after, his laughter. It was undoubtedly mean spirited to laugh at poor Crowley’s expense but, in his defense, he _had_ warned him of this inevitable income. Biting down on his lips to contain more laughter, the angel ventured forward to stand over Crowley, umbrella still in hand and his eyes still dancing with repressed mirth. Heeding the demon’s request and not uttering a single teasing word, Aziraphale simply held out his other hand for Crowley to take. Begrudgingly, the demon accepted it and allowed himself to be helped to his feet.

“You _did_ manage to sit on it for longer than I thought you would,” he mused, giving Crowley’s hand a good-natured squeeze before letting it go, and the demon huffed quietly, pushing his wet hair back out of his eyes. He’d lost his sunglasses in the fall and been too embarrassed to bother groping around for them.

“Whatever,” Crowley groused, thoroughly drenched and muddied, and Aziraphale offered up a sympathetic smile before lifting his thumb, attempting to swipe away a bit of mud near the corner of the demon’s mouth. If Crowley shivered, it was purely because he was cold-blooded and being wet made him feel even colder; it had nothing to do with the angel’s touch.

“What do you say to a nice bath back at the hotel? After all, you _could_ miracle the mud away, but there’s nothing like a proper soak to warm the bones straight through to the soul.”

So he had noticed the shiver, then. Taking a deep breath, Crowley continued seething over his own humiliation for a moment longer before exhaling and giving a resigned shrug, mumbling, “Fine, alright, yeah, okay. A bath… wouldn’t be _awful._ ”

Smiling brightly, Aziraphale stepped closer to his demonic companion, sheltering them both from the quickening rain with his umbrella as he led the way back to their hotel.

* * *

They had separate rooms, of course, but Crowley was _actively_ shivering by the time they reached the Palmer House Hotel. They’d both been in Chicago for roughly the same amount of time and staying at the same hotel had just made _sense;_ it allowed them to regroup each evening and discuss the day’s miracles and wiles - to ensure there was no overlap… and perhaps to share a bottle of wine or two.

Tonight, though, Aziraphale decided quickly that it _also_ just made sense to unlock the door to _his_ room and invite the shivering demon inside, largely because there was no way that Crowley would be able to effectively take care of himself in his present state. Aziraphale really _had_ tried to warn him that no good could come of riding (or attempting to ride) a unicycle, and now the poor serpent was about to slip into a hypothermic hibernation coma. His feet were already dragging on the floor, leaving tracks of mud in their wake.

“I did try to tell you, dear boy,” the angel sighed as he all but dragged Crowley into the bathroom, sitting him down on the edge of the tub and busying himself with the taps, allowing mostly hot water to flood into the porcelain. Crowley responded with a quiet “ngh” and a bleary-eyed shiver as his hair dripped into his eyes and his stylish, muddy clothes clung to him like a second skin that he desperately needed to shed.

Tutting softly, Aziraphale went about helping Crowley out of his sopping, filthy jacket, allowing himself for once to just drop an article of clothing onto the floor. It was beyond saving at this point, so it wouldn’t matter if it wrinkled, and besides – Crowley miracled all of his clothing into being, anyway. It would be replaced with a pristine new jacket by morning light.

Once Crowley had been stripped of his clothes, with the diligent aid of an ever-attentive and far-too-kind angel, he slithered down into the waiting, nearly scalding hot water and let it cover his body all the way up to his neck. With a quiet hiss of relief, his eyes finally fell shut.

“Poor thing,” Aziraphale sighed as he sat on the edge of the tub, not for a second even considering that, perhaps, Crowley might want some privacy. Privacy was never really in their vernacular. Should one of them really desire to be alone, all it took was some gentle prodding to accomplish it, but personal space rarely came into consideration. There were moments back in Eden when Crowley, taking the form of a smaller snake, would curl around Aziraphale’s shoulders to watch events unfolding in the Garden, just as there were moments when Aziraphale, drunk on too much spiced wine, had slumped against Crowley for support to keep from toppling over. Privacy and personal space hardly factored in when neither party really wanted to be alone.

It took only a few moments for Aziraphale to realize that Crowley, taking comfort in the warmth of the bath water, had drifted off to sleep. _The wily, slothful serpent_ … Wily, slothful, and – Aziraphale noted this last bit with a shockingly soft smile that would have made Gabriel wretch – utterly _precious._

Crowley _was_ precious to Aziraphale. He was quite certain that he always had been, and that he always would be. He hadn’t quite realized yet that finding him precious went hand-in-hand with being in love with him; being rather slow at the draw, the angel wouldn’t figure _that_ bit out for nearly a hundred more years. In 1906, though, just accepting that he was precious was enough.

Accepting that he found Crowley precious was enough to allow him the luxury of carding gentle fingers through the demon’s hair, a small miracle or two ridding it of the mud caked into the strands and restoring it to its former, elegant glory. After what felt like an eternity but really could have only been a few moments, Crowley exhaled a contented hum and relaxed further into the water as Aziraphale continued toying with his hair.

“Better?” the angel asked, arching an eyebrow with his fond smile still in place.

Steam rolling off of the water and seeping into his pores, the demon hissed out, “ _Loadsssssss._ ”

“Good. I can _hardly_ abide you freezing yourself into hibernation, _especially_ when you’ve only just woken up.”

“And why’s that?” Crowley asked, a teasingly lilt to his voice and his smile as he cracked a single, slit-pupiled eye open to peek up at the angel. “Would you _missssssss_ me?”

“Yes,” Aziraphale stated with no hesitation whatsoever, which rather took Crowley aback. When both of his eyes opened and his pupils dilated with shock, Aziraphale sighed and gave his own eyes a good-natured roll. “Oh, don’t look so surprised. I missed you quite terribly over the past century. It just wasn’t the same without your wiles to thwart, and… well, you know.”

“I’m not sure that I do,” Crowley tacked on, hanging on the angel’s every word, and Aziraphale blushed as he cleared his throat. He was going to make him say it, wasn’t he?

“Well, you’re… you are sort of… I suppose you’re what the humans would call my ‘best friend’, aren’t you? A century is quite a long time to go without one’s best friend, even if he is an incorrigibly silly serpent who insists upon riding a unicycle when he knows that he’s going to fail miserably.”

Scoffing at the mention of the unicycle, Crowley felt his cheeks heating up for a reason entirely unrelated to the hot water that he was soaking in. You see, while Aziraphale would take another ninety-or-so years to figure out that he was in love with Crowley, Crowley had known that he was in love with Aziraphale for a long, long time. It was rather hard to miss when being around the angel was the only time he felt Loved since Falling from Grace.

While he knew, with a deeply profound certainty, that he was in love with the angel, he was content with simply being his best friend – for now. It was more than he really had any right to even hope for.

“I had no idea you’d miss me so much,” he finally mumbled, clearing his throat before adding, “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be,” Aziraphale waved the apology off, smiling as his other fingers stilled in Crowley’s hair. “I’d hate to dwell on the past when the present is so much nicer.”

Crowley opened his mouth to protest his presence being associated with anything “nice” but Aziraphale pressed a well-manicured finger to his lips to stop him, giving his head a shake.

“Now, don’t go spoiling the moment. I’ve only just told you that you’re my best friend; don’t make me take it back.”

Smirking against Aziraphale’s finger, Crowley nipped it lightly with sharp teeth before hissing, “No take _backssssssss_.”

Aziraphale tutted for the umpteenth time that evening and shook his head, drawing his finger away from Crowley’s teeth. After a moment of comfortable silence, Crowley lifted a hand out of the bath water, absently tracing patterns on its surface as he mused, “You’re… y’know… mine too. My best friend.”

The angel lit up like the sun breaking through the clouds on a rainy morning.

“I am?” he asked, prompting Crowley to _properly_ roll his eyes.

“Who _else_ is it going to be, angel? I certainly wouldn’t want to wine and dine with _Hastur_.”

Regardless of the snarky quip, Aziraphale still looked tickled pink.

“I’m your best friend,” he repeated, giving a happy little wiggle on the edge of the tub, and Crowley narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t go saying that too loud, or I’ll-”

“Ah, ah, ah – no take backs,” the angel retorted, and there it was again – that smug-little-bastard smirk that had started this whole mess back at the circus. The smirk that only ever appeared when the angel had used his wit to turn Crowley’s own words back upon him.

Narrowing his eyes further, Crowley frowned before darting both arms out with cobra-like speed, dragging the fully-clothed angel down into the bath water with him. Aziraphale gave an indignant, not-at-all angelic shriek in response.

“ _Crowley!_ You’ve gone and soaked me through, and I’ve had this jacket since 1843!”

“Well, then I’d say it’s due for a good washing.” A smirk of his own pulling at his lips while the water continued to slosh over the edge of the tub, Crowley remarked, “Isn’t cleanliness close to godliness, angel?”

Huffing, Aziraphale splashed Crowley pointedly, grumbling, “You _are_ terrible.”

“But I’m still your best friend?”

Staring at the demon, who had his eyebrow arched and, behind all that snark and pomp, hopeful eyes, Aziraphale felt his annoyance soften. The smallest of smiles gracing his features, he gave Crowley one more half-hearted splash before stating, “ _Yes,_ you foul fiend. Terrible though you may be, I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

Wrapped up in the warmth of the bath water and Aziraphale’s Loving glow, Crowley let himself smile.


End file.
